Yes, it is reminiscent of the End of the World flash movie. Especially since the first thing the Horrors of France would do is take over the people who control the nuclear missiles. After Le Nap, they would "fire ze missiles!" Things would get real interesting once the Horrors had nuclear-weapon armed servants.

To use another cultural reference, I think Horror-infested-SR would look a lot like Doom3.

--K

Well, except that one guy with a pump-action shotgun probably wouldn't stop the threat.

Did I already mention that it's ALMOST LOTR TIME BABY YEAH! T-2h18m

...

Horrors make background count just by existing. Who is to say that they would not find the cermak background to be an unusually pleseant environment. It's an aura of destruction painful to metahumans, but it might feel good to a horror. Even toxic mages like certain backgrounds that others dont. In earthdawn most of the astral plane is still tainted by the scourge. Clean astral areas are rare!

In earthdawn the horrors didn't just kill people, they destroyed everything that wasn't shielded. At the end of the scourge the place was a wasteland. Earthdawn goes on a bit about how even though the game is set about 200 years after the scourge the scars are still obvious. The forests are growing back, etc. At the end of the scourge it seems like there was nothing left outside. Just how many super fusion powered hover tanks can you afford to have guarding your iron mine?

Also in earthdawn everyone (including groups of great dragons) is in hiding hundereds of years before the scourge reaches its peak. Nobody knows what it is like outside in the middle of the scourge because nobody outside survives (not even most of those in hiding survive).

Nobody has any clue if there is even a finite number of horrors. Maybe there is an inexhaustible supply. Maybe each time you kill one a new one is created somewhere.

Interesting debate on the functionality of nukes. Consider the toxic salamanders that occur spontaneously in central regions of nuclear cataclysms, the fallout would not free earth from invasion. The nuke could effectively destroy the purely physical Horrors in mass, but the astral Horrors show a disturbing capability of claiming any astral pollution as power to themselves.

As I said, technology will provide a clear advantage against the weak and physical but will not provide a direct advantage against the powerful.

I spent too much time considering my words, Rev has added many valid thoughts as well.

"Every time you pull the trigger, a new Horror gets its wings"

--K

Remember, I'm not talking just about Background Count here. It's officially a "Mana Warp", and the 14D Damage per Combat Turn rule doesn't say anything about some astral forms being immune to it.

There are, IRL, life forms that don't mind radiation much. Certain bacteria you can blast into bits with gamma radiation, and they just form up again and go on living. Their common habitats include X-ray tubes. However, nothing larger than a single-cell organism can manage this, and when people generally talk about "not getting killed in a nuclear war" (like some say about cockroaches), they still won't stay alive if they happen to be within a few kilometers of the ground zero at the time of the explosion. That's just the fallout.

The immediate radiation from a 500 megaton fission warhead is enough to kill a man 33,000 times over within 1 kilometer of ground zero.

What things, exactly, did damage to the physical forms of horrors in Earthdawn? If heat damages them (as in Fire-elemental effects), then they are certainly in trouble.

Other interesting trivia: 500 megatons will set fire to coniferous forest within 208 kilometers. Brought to you by the Finnish Defence Forces Protection Field Manual.

BTW, T-1h13m. MWAAAHHAHAHA!

Righty-o, then any and all physical forms of horrors would immediately and irrevocably be annihilated by the blast. Let's concentrate on the Mana Warp/BC-10 vs Astral Horrors, then.

But now I'm off. Can you guess where to? (Will be back to spoil you all in 4.5 hours.)

I shall just add that Horrors are more-or-less immune to astral pollution (Hell, they cause astral pollution), they might be very comfortable in a Mana Warp.

Likewise, any nuklear blast might cast any astral Horror into hibernation, a la Bug City.

Of course, you all are in the assumption that there will be any nukes around when the Mana peaks and the horrors cross over. Remember, that won't happen for almost three thousand years. A lot will happen between now and then.

Perhaps metahumanity will blast itself back to the stoneage. Start over. And if we're lucky, build up enough tech/magical know how to build kaers again.

Or maybe the horror's agents are working among us, keeping a lid on our technological breakthroughs, undoing the works of Dunkie's will, the Draco Foundation, and Leonardo.

(Speakin of, has Leonardo been heard from since he was poisoned? Or are supposed to assume that he died?)

Anyway, look at the last 3000 years of history. Lots has changed. When the Horror's come through, it'll be a very different world than it is 'now'.

Could be interesting....

I'm thinking more and more about building a bomb shelter, what with the increase of world tensions lately.

And then turning it into a kaer for good measure.

Leo is currently believed to be working in Saeder-Krupp's little workshop in Antarctica.

First off, I'm very glad to see that AE wasn't mocking me.

Secondly, I come down on the side of "humanity would find a way to fight". At least in the SR world, anyway. The use of nukes--tac or ICBM scale--would probably signal an end ot life as this planet knows it but it beats hiding caves for thousands of years while the place gets back to....hey, wait a tick.

Kidding. I think Metahumanity would use whatever means neccessary to fight those bastards. I think we'd also have advanced warning of the arrival. I don't picture it as the clock strikes 12 and BLAMO the demonic hordes are released covvering the planet (BTW, some one made reference to that elswhere, i think it was a figure of speech not that the Horrors literally covered the surface of the planet. Humans "cover the planet" but you could still fire a cannon through parts and not hit a thing). I see it more like more and more would slip over until one powerful enough to organize them all arrives. Then some shadowrunner (or whatever they're called in 1000 years or so) discovers the plot tells everybody and the world is now prepared. Cue the fight for (meta)humanity.

Or you could go w/ the theory that all the FASA worlds were/are connected and we'll be fighting the Horrors w/ Magic, Nukes, and Mechs....

Isn't that VOR?

You forgot crazy fighter planes too.

4th age had at least as long to prepare, nethermancers were well aware of what was going to happen, yet only a token populace survived.

Until a recent change in policy, Aztechnology was a pawn to make the earth open to a visit long before the natural time. The Theran attempts to stop the ebb of mana may have thrown the cycle off a bit as well. We do not know if such behaviour was attempted in the unrecorded ages (before 4), these types of massive scale influence may lead to the most complete scourge yet.

I'm convinced that regardless of human tech, some of the Horrors are more than capable of opening the proverbial can of whup-ass. Wholly Astral entities are probably pretty tough to kill. The Horrors that focus on corruption and gain their power by making people kick other people's ass would be really nasty. I forget the Named one that empowers people as amazing warriors and causes them to fight eternal wars, but imagine the carnage if that one got his talons into someone with access to strategic nuclear weapons... Think what Artificer could do if his "ingenious traps" got to include dual-stage lasers and sentry guns... And then of course there's my man Verjigorm. When there's ass to be kicked, he's the one you call.

The assumption here is that the Horrors won't be able to fight technology. Well, the Great Dragons can't either; nuke Lofwyr and he dies. The successful dragons have embraced tech and grown stronger. Who's to say that the Horrors won't do exactly the same thing? God knows some of the named ones are smart enough to figure it out.

Think of a nuclear-, viral-, and nanotech-armed Named Horror, with a legion of fanatical followers, in addition to the Earthdawn-level magic. I'd say this Scourge could be every bit as bad as the last.

I fear for you when your players realize what's going on.

I wonder what'll happen when Artificer sees the joys of juicer nanites...

The big bad horrors, even in physical form, wouldn't be slowed by a nuke. They would put on their sunglasses, damage shift everything to the nearest peon, and make nuclear snow-balls.

I'm my campaign there are antimatter weapons (albeit they are few and far between, generally out of production, and banned). I'm not sure if a horror could damage shift particle annihilation or not.

But regardless: Damage Shift, Regeneration, Immunity to Fire/Heat. Three reasons why a good chunk of the scourge would survive.

Astral shifting is common among the strong as well.

"Hey, looky a nuke."
1/8th of the Horrors in the region step into the astral
Nuke hits
Specified 1/8th step back into the physical with more grunts than before.

I know of a few who would just keep laughing as you shoot with that anti-hydrogen gun (especially since it would react immediately with the atmosphere and kill the user, but even if it works they'd still laugh).

Living in an aquacology made of solid orichalam.

And a sizable number of mages.

Yep.

Damage Shift is an earthdawn horror power that some of the more powerful horrors use. It allows them to (basically) burn karma to transfer damage from a given attack to another person within LOS, or (I suppose) though a Mark... a Mark allows a Horror to 'link' to a creature or object in such a way that they can corrupt it and/or cast spells through the marked thing/creature.

Damage Shift and Mark + Nuclear Bomb = Bomb drops, horror shifts damage to some shmuck it's marked in some other part of the world; Horror laughs at nuclear blast, schuck vaporizes in front of his buddies.

A missile like that is theoretically functional, I'd suggest not putting any positrons in there so you only need a strong negative charge to keep the anti-protons in place (unless I am missing a negative somewhere).

What the... So a Horror could easily shift something on the order of 89,442D+11,880? That's the Damage Code of a canon 500 megaton warhead, Blast -4/meter, and that's for the explosion only, the additional heat and radiation not accounted for. I call that bullshe-it.

If they have Immunity: Heat, then that would reduce the damage they take by a significant amount. Maybe they'd take only 44,000D+5,500. Good for him.

The first bugger that says that you'd have to roll 1d6 to see whether a horror taking 5,500 boxes of overdamage takes irreversible damage to their central nervous system will be violated. And not in a good way.

okay, 220 year before shadowrun single shot guns were the norm.In shadowrun they have lasers, given say 200 years, lasers will be the norm.Lasers kill spirits rather nicely.

Remember the little F3 that was used in killing bugs.Think of what we will come up with in 200 years.

I see a lot of people talking about bombs,but if we have world wide bateria that kills all the big nasties ,then they are all dead,and we live a nice happy life.Oh, no magic, big deal, most of metahumanity lives,and most of the world lives.

Damage shift is not dependent on the amount of damage being delt in a single attack. There is NO upper limit to the amount of damage that can be shifted. It is dependent on the number of damage shifts the horror has left, which is directly related to the amount of karma the horror has left (and for the big guys, they get to shift a lot... that's why horror hunters in Earthdawn attack in packs: the horror can only kill off so many of you with your own attacks before it gets tired).

Here here, Velocity. If no damage can ever kill the big ones if they've got any karma left, let's just forget about everything else and start getting us some of that Kaer goodness.

First : horrors are not united. The powerfull ones don't care about the lessers.
Seconds : some would know, some wouldn't. The main mistake when dealing with horrors as a whole is too consider them all the same. They have some common points, but each one is unique. Any of the techniques presented here would work on some, but not on all of them. Hell, there's even horrors with an astral body and a physical one, both active at the same time in different places. And you have to kill both.

BTW, does the Damage Shift power shift the Damage only, or the actual effects of the damage?

"That was the easiest $5,000 bucks I ever made! All I had to do was to be part of this whacky ritual where the azzies..."
Bob blinks black and white, and with an odd *poof* sound every now-dead cell in his body gets a sudden urge to get away from the others at 10,000km/sec, setting the room on fire and giving his buddies 3rd degree burns, and giving all the firemen, paramedics and some nurses and doctors cancer.

So why are there so many people round these parts that seem to be looking forward to the end of civilization??

No more DS, no more Jennifer Love Hewitt, no more Space: Above and Beyond marathons on SciFi, no more Mighty Taco, no more porn, no more of ANY of the stuff that we like...joy, the demon horde is here in all its coolness.

Damage shift or not, I still say a nuke will positively ruin the day of a Horror. And positively end the days of most of their minions. And positively end any of the infrastructure that the Big Bads may have set up. Remember the golden rule of being on THIS side of the GM screen: "If it has stats, we can kill it".

I'm not proposing that one nuke, one kill and humanity is saved. I'm saying that this time humans have a chance to actually fight. Unlike before. And apparently I'm not alone in my thinking. The Big D was of that opinion, IIRC.

And if that plan don't work, I guess I should start my IE physmage so he can immediately begin work on the "damage shift" spell. With sustaining focus. Or expand on the metamagic technique. Only got 3000 years so I'd best get busy...Then we'll see who's the better munchkin: me or the eternal evil. Talk about Horror hunter, i could be at ground zero sluggin it out and when the nuke hits I'd just turn on my damage shift thingy and BLAM-O. Any bad guys that happen to be wearing 10,000,000 sun block get blasted by my "shift".

(@ AE: BTW, LOTR = Good? b/c the 3rd Matrix was as bad as everyone said it was)

To damage-shift you would have to study the horrors... not a good idea. And has it has been said before, the most dangerous hooros, the plotters, the ones that do not take part in the daemonic horde type of behavior, don't really realy care about nukes cause they are WITH metahumans. Be close to youre food...

The most dangerous ones need to be taken care of on a case by case basis.

You should take a look at the "Horrors" book from earthdawn to see what I mean.

3000 years.

Three Thousand Years.

Three
Thousand
Years

Civilization could fall and rise and surpass what we have now in that amount of time. With all due respect to ED era mages and adepts, they did not have near the power we have now.

In 3000 year we could easily be living in the asteroid belt, on other planets in other solar systems. The majority of meta-humanity could well be living off planet.

In 3000 years we could have essence friendly free floating nanotech that allows regeneration, super-intelligence, super-strength, and near immortality.

I believe the reason Aztlan was trying so hard to bring the Horrors here now is that they saw that in 3000 years meta-humanity would be able to destroy, not defeat, destroy the horrors.

On the other hand, in 3000 years we could all be wearing loin cloths hiding in caves from giant toxic mutant magical devil rats

I'll second that advice. Read the Horrors soucebook for Earthdawn. Then come back and suggest we can just 'fight' the horrors.

Personally, I think a good option would be to both fight AND hide from the horrors.

I'll agree that tech and magic will probably advance to the point that most of the horrors will be getting a fair fight when they come through. But for some of the the really big baddies, hiding might still be a good option in a few thousand years.

I'd be willing to bet that in a few thousand years, nukes won't even be considered.
WMDs like nukes are just too bad for everyone.

Has this thread gotten way off topic? Weren't we discussing what Kaers in the Shadowrun universe would look like?

I got dibs on the terraformed Mars kaer!

I hear that Io will be nice that time of year

PCs in my game found an old Kaer deep underneath Guatemala city, and another one in Lake Vostok in Antarctica (although that one had a Great Leviathan living in it ). Of course, this isn't canon... I imagine that, after 10,000 years of the Kaers not being in use, techtonics, volcanoes, shifting desert sand, etc could have trashed a lot of them. Who knows what happened to the flying ones, although I seem to remember something about people seeing a floating, trashed city in the clouds somewhere far in the north... Underwater ones, those built with a shell of true water, would have (likely)collapsed as soon as magic ebbed, and sediment would have covered the remains, making them hard to find. Imagine the orichalcum that you could dig out of a Kaer!